Yeah, yeah...it's another new post...quit pretending to faint

Okay, so I'm still struggling with finding a way to reach the outwardly challenging students. You know the ones; the disrespectful, defiant, disruptive kids that seem to suck all of their teachers' energy and time as they hoard as much of the attention that they can conceivably steal. At first, I set out to put an end to this kind of thing by establishing a lunch detention. Sadly, the students this would most benefit are the 8th graders whom I can't hold a lunch detention for because...well..I have lunch duty then. However, as time went on I noticed that the same students tended to be frequent fliers in the lunch detention program. Apparently sitting in my room, peacefully eating their lunch away from their friends and having to clean my room wasn't much of a deterrent and the only real person I was punishing was myself. I was rewarding the students with what they wanted most, my attention and yet was still having my attention diverted from the other students who actually deserved to have it for following directions and cooperating in class.

So, I abolished lunch detention since it was serving no real purpose and began inviting students who I felt would appreciate spending some time hanging out in my room with me. We eat our lunch, discuss whatever topics they present and then end the lunch period with a strategy board game. It sure beats the hell out of what passes for recess in middle school, that's for damn sure. What is my goal? Why am I doing this? I'm planting seeds. That's right, I'm building relationships with some of my younger students (6th and 7th graders) who will hopefully be around for the next year or two. My hope is that by doing this I will have reached some of the students that might have either gotten lost in the shuffle because they're more reserved or quiet (the non-squeaky wheels) and helped to strengthen their self confidence or possibly break them out of their shells a bit. I'm also performing some PR not just for our school because we want to keep the good kids, but also some self-serving PR, so that as I continue to establish myself at the middle school, I'm not just the mean Art teacher that actually assigns seats and expects students to actually earn their grades, but is the Art teacher that goes above and beyond, who cares about his students and takes the time to get to know them.

Is it working? Hell, I have no idea. But I do know one things for sure, I'm enjoying lunch "detention" a whole lot more than I ever did before. And yeah, I also sometimes let the kids beat me. LOL.